Natural Abundance

It takes a little effort to wake from the warmth of my bed to bundle up and recline under the deep blue clouds above, but it's worth it. The same goes for so many things. The pine tree rises in its own way, certain toward the sky, leaving branches of understanding in many directions, but always centered in that higher focus.

True abundance is not rooted in monetary wealth. It is rooted in the ground, in the growth and hard work, in the awakened sight achieved through self-reliance and survival strength of weathering seasons of storms. True abundance is that self-made view. It's the effort and reward of aiming high, and the naturally good feelings awakened in the glisten of that morning dew.

How do I know this? One way is by the strange currents of others. I remember sensing envy from the outside at all stages in my life. Unhappiness and jealousy, wishing they could have what I have, never understanding that the reason I have what I have is because of what's inside.

What an honor to meet other women and men similar to me, who reap joy and empowerment from good-moraled, hard work rather than meet the work begrudgingly. To live a life of resentment or negative comparison is to live life like a vine, never self-certain enough to stand on one's own nor reach that highest connection with Self----the one that unlocks the flood of glory and truth that this is your life. Can you feel it? Can you taste it and breathe it and dive right in? Can you bathe in the cool air and adore the tingles at the core of your being? Can you open it up like the mountain-crest sky and extend it like the unseen breeze? Can you feel the moon in its brightest hour?

"The beauty of balance is that everything is right, and good, and welcomed." (Quote from Mindfulness and Me by Kira M. Markoff). I love this quote because it reminds me of my own internal home. With a sturdy, yet flexible trunk, I can listen and understand because I know how bizarre and stressful the human world can be, but with my growth root dipped like the tip of a finger in a pond, I am rippling now in higher skies. What kind of balance am I personally drawing meaning? One inspired by this apple, perhaps.

Birthed from the joy of carved-out time, an after work trip to the laundry mat alchemizes within to become rest and reflect space. Grateful for the time well spent and the time well saved, I breathe in the cool liquid air of Lake Raponda, noticing the wild apples on my way home. So small, I could fear them and forget my intuitive connection, restored somewhere out there, somewhere in the breeze, but my lungs fill instead. I know this fruit. I pull to the side of an empty dirt road and lean against the tree's trunk as I reach for several small apples. Back in my car, I take a bite, and it is good. I eat the whole fruit, just as I did the huckleberries in Idaho and the wild plums near Washington, born again after releasing my dragon talisman in the nearby river. This apple is a symbol of my Freedom----my earth-nourished, intimate soul Freedom.

And now the balance. I could compare this wild apple experience to the orchard apple experience my boyfriend and I plan to have this weekend, in a way that renders one better than the other, but "The beauty of balance is that everything is right, and good, and welcomed." Planned apples and spontaneous. The bounty of the earth, no matter what, is good, and in the higher skies, the purity of balance is far more clear because it isn't muddled with trunk-weakening things.

In lower ways of life, balance didn't make sense, and by lower, I'm not referring to monetary standing. Once again, that paper wealth really means nothing if you don't own your own wealth inside. When you hold your soul as precious as the earth's apple in your hand and the full moon in your heart, it is life itself that sustains you, and the life of pine-tree others who inspire.